Planned Parenthood Funding on the Chopping Block

The pendulum finally appears to be swinging. After Obamacare forced all employers in the United States, including Christian-owned businesses and non-profits, to offer and pay for abortions, the new GOP proposal to replace it would strip all federal funding for abortions (there are limited exceptions when it involves saving the life of the mother or in instances of rape or incest). The GOP’s American Health Care Act would also ban federal subsidies for any health care plan that covers abortion. The Republican plan is a serious blow to Planned Parenthood, which accounts for at least one-third of all abortions in America.

“As long as Planned Parenthood continues to perform abortions, and especially as long as abortion is their core business, they should not receive the hard-earned money of American taxpayers,” said Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, a policy adviser for The Catholic Association, after the new GOP proposal was unveiled on March 7.

Planned Parenthood receives half a billion in taxpayer dollars annually and performs more than 300,000 abortions each year. While officials with Planned Parenthood maintain abortions are already exempt from federal funding and only account for 3 percent of its services, the practice is clearly a cash cow for the organization. Predictably, Planned Parenthood officials are not happy, claiming that such cuts would deprive women of vital health services, such as mammograms. The truth, though, is the organization has never offered the cancer screenings, but instead refers patients to outside sources for such preventive care.

What is not being reported in the mainstream media is that many of those who support defunding Planned Parenthood are also calling on the federal government to redirect those funds to community health organizations that do not perform abortions. That means that federal funding for women’s health would not evaporate, despite what abortion supporters are lamenting. The money would just be shifted to organizations that are not committed to the death industry.

The plan still faces a fight in Congress, where at least two Republican Senators and one GOP Representative have said they would not support any change in Obamacare that includes defunding of women’s health services. Stay tuned!